Running Wild
by Finariona
Summary: What if Harry and Draco had never found the slain unicorn in their detention in the Forbidden Forest in first year? What if they had found an entrance to the Chamber of Secrets instead? A new tale of friendships, magical discoveries and war against the Dark Lord springs forth. (Not HPDM slash.) The ensemble cast also stars Hermione, Neville, Weasleys, Snape and a few others.


_What if Draco and Harry had never found the slain unicorn in their detention in the Forbidden Forest in first year? What if they had found an entrance to the Chamber of Secrets instead? A new tale of friendships, magical discoveries and war against the Dark Lord springs forth._

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**Preliminary note**

This fanfic is grafted on _Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone,_ and accepts canon up to where the story begins - when Harry, Draco, Hermione and Neville are serving detention with Hagrid and Fang in the Forbidden Forest in their first year. Therefore, everything that is written in _HP & the Philosopher's Stone_ up to this event is assumed as fact.

Here is all you need to remember : The four first-years are in detention because they were caught roaming the castle at midnight. Harry and Hermione had been carrying Hagrid's baby dragon Norbert up to the astronomy tower to Charlie Weasley and his colleagues. They had agreed to secretly remove the illegal animal from Hogwarts. Draco had been following the pair to tell on them. Neville had also attempted to follow his housemates, as he wished to prevent them from misbehaving. Ron was not with his friends that night because he was in the infirmary-his hand was still infected from Norbert's bite.

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**Chapter 1 – A Wild Night**

There was an unusual party roaming the Forbidden Forest the night of April 17th, 1992. Harry Potter, Draco Malfoy, Hermione Granger and Neville Longbottom were being led among the trees by their school's gamekeeper, Rubeus Hagrid, and his hound Fang. The four students were as diminutive as Hagrid and his dog were enormous; their contrasting shapes added to the oddity of their trek. Students did not often go into the forest bordering the school grounds, and those who did, soon grew out of the habit : the many disquieting cries and shapes of the forest dwellers had soon discouraged the most adventurous Hogwarts students. Yet here were four first-years, who were in the forest on official school business, serving a most unorthodox detention.

Harry and Draco were walking behind Fang, while Hagrid was now leading Neville and Hermione. Their two groups had parted ways and were hoping to locate a wounded unicorn.

'Why did you do it?', asked Harry to Draco, as they were stumbling through the dark undergrowth of the Forbidden Forest. Both were very unhappy with having to be together.

'I don't have to justify myself to you about where I go in the castle', replied Draco testily.

'I bet you wanted to have us caught smuggling Norbert out of Hogwarts just because you were jealous that we got to take care of Hagrid's baby dragon'.

'As if I needed to pay court to that oaf Hagrid in order to catch a glimpse of a dragon. My father, Potter, has brought me to see many dragons, while you were living with _muggles_.'

'Don't insult-

'Your parents? Of course not, Potter. I'm a well-bred wizard, after all,' chirped Draco, and Harry could not figure out whether the arrogant blond was being serious and was following a wizarding convention he did not know about, or whether he was mocking him. This annoyed Harry more than what Draco had to say about his aunt, uncle and cousin. This was not common knowledge at Hogwarts, but Harry did not care much for his relatives.

'Er, I meant to say, don't insult Hagrid, Malfoy, or I'll make you regret it.'

Draco was puzzled by this last remark and avoided replying. It did not fall under sense that Harry would bristle about a casual slight to the school's gamekeeper, and overlook a direct insult to his adoptive parents. But the blonde boy forgot all about his train of thought as he realized that Fang was no longer in view in front him. And it terrified it because it meant that-

'I think we've lost our guide, Malfoy,' said Harry cautiously.

'We would not had if you had not started arguing!'

'There's no point in making accusations. We need to find Fang again. He probably kept on following the unicorn blood trail.'

Harry's adoptive parents, the Dursleys, had given him a fair training in keeping calm while being yelled at unfairly, and the situation was concerning enough that he knew it was in his best interest to do so. Malfoy nodded, and both boys started looking around for the telltale silver glimmer of unicorn blood. But the forest ground, the trees and the undergrowth remained unmercifully dark and matte.

After moving about for a while and looking at the ground, neither boy could remember where they had come from.

'Did you get us lost too now, Potter?'

'Malfoy? We probably should try to send up red sparks.'

'I'll do it,' replied Draco as he pointed his wand towards the sky. A shower of sparks shot up from it with a faint sputter. Then they sat on a mossy boulder and waited. After a moment, they heard faint dog barks in the distance and their anxiety receded. They believed that Fang, possibly accompanied by Hagrid, was on his way back to find them.

Fang, however, was not hounding them; he had found the unicorn's carcass and was broadcasting its location to his master. Hagrid, together with Neville and Hermione, was walking towards Fang's barks, in the direction opposite that of the boys, and their backs were to the sparks.

When Hagrid, Neville and Hermione arrived where his dog was waiting, near a lifeless unicorn splayed on the mossy ground, they realized that Harry and Draco were missing. The unicorn lay in a moonlit clearing, clearly visible, but the boys were nowhere in sight.

'Where are Harry and Malfoy?', asked Hermione in a shrill voice.

'I'll go find'em. Yeh two stay here with Fang. Don't leave this clearing!' said Hagrid. He turned heels and started calling after Harry and Draco, in a booming voice that echoed through the forest.

Hagrid had been gone for a few minutes when Hermione walked across the clearing to the dead unicorn and put a tentative hand on its flank.

'It's still warm, Neville!', she said in surprise.

'It must have died tonight, then,' Neville replied, as a strange, deep sadness filled him while he rested his eyes on the beautiful beast. It made him remember a story his grandmother Longbottom had sometimes told him as he grew up in her care.

'Have you ever heard of the story of Eri, Hermione?'

'No, I haven't. What is it?'

'It's a wizarding story, one of our traditional myths. Parents tell them to their children as they grow up. The story of Eri is a myth about a wizard named Eri, who came back from the afterlife with many tales. Eri had been chosen by Magic to be a messenger to wizards. It spoke to him after he had died, and it made him see the places and mysteries of the afterlife. Afterwards, Magic resuscitated him, so that he could tell wizards what he had seen. One Eri's stories talks about what happens to unicorns when they die, and of the sufferings those who kill them or take their blood endure. Unicorns, he says, are pure souls and, unless murdered, they always die at the moment of their choosing. They are, with dragons and phoenixes, the most magical of creatures. When they die freely, they access the Great Beyond; that is, they realize complete dissolution of their soul into Magic itself. Only them and pure wizards can do this. Eri says that to achieve this is to achieve eternal bliss. All other magical creatures and wizards have to endure trials in the afterlife, proportional to their goodness in this present life, before being reborn. Those who kill unicorns or take their blood forcibly are forever stained and will never, not in this life nor in any of their future lives, achieve purity and reach the end of their cycle of lives. They will never rejoin Magic itself. Not even through successive rebirths will the stain lift. To drink unicorn blood forcibly taken is to doom oneself to live eternally, but a half-life only, one deprived of the possibility of fulfillment.'

'That's... that's tragic, murmured Hermione. Why would any creature or person want to do this, if this myth has a chance of being true?'

'Because unicorn blood, no matter how obtained, will keep you alive and bring you back to health, no matter how close you are to dying. It is also said that unicorns, because they are pure and know right from wrong, can see into wizard's hearts. The myth of Eri also tells of what happens to wizards killed by unicorns. If a repentant wizard wants to cleanse his soul and family name of a wrong he has done, he can seek a unicorn and kneel in front of it, and beg it to kill him. If the unicorn sees true repentance and a pure heart, it will accept and impale the wizard on its horn, straight through the heart. The myth of Eri says that wizards who die in such a way are reborn as unicorns. That's how unicorns come into existence.'

'So this unicorn, then, was once a wizard, according to your myths?'. A tear was forming on the cusp of Hermione's lid.

'Yes, replied Neville softly. Or a witch. But the saddest part of the story is what Eri says happens to slain unicorns. Their magic simply disappears from existence. They were pure souls, very close in nature to magic itself, and about to return to it, but their murder makes it vanish as if it had never existed. It diminishes the world's magic. That's why its punished so severely.'

Hermione and Neville fell silent after he had spoken those words. They were crouched between the unicorn's four legs, facing each other, their sides touching its large silver-grey flank. The rhythm of their breaths contrasted with the immobility of the unicorn as they gently petted its coat. The tear that Hermione had been holding fell on its withers.

Oddly comfortable even though they were in a dangerous forest in the middle of the night, alone and near a dead body, the two young Gryffindors quietly fell asleep, ensconced by the remaining warmth of the unicorn's body, exhausted by their trek and the late hour, and lulled into a sense of security with Fang's watchful eye roaming over them.

While Neville had been storytelling, Hagrid had been walking some distance away in the forest, calling for Harry and Draco. He was very nervous because he could not let anything happen to them. He had not told Minerva McGonagall that he was bringing first years in the forest at night. He knew she would think very poorly of his idea.

He had learned, earlier at dinnertime, that his young friends had been scheduled to clean utilities under Filch's supervision, and he had felt he owed it to them to save them from a night spent under the caretaker's tender mercies. Had it not been for Harry and Hermione's help in securing a discrete escape for his baby dragon Norbert, he would probably have gotten into a heap of trouble for illegal possession of a restricted and dangerous animal. Hagrid had spoken to Filch, and convinced him that he could make the detention worse for the first-years by bringing them in the forest. To ward of the cranky old squib's suspicions, he even asked for a a cask of mead in exchange. Hagrid knew the kids could get in no danger if they stayed with him, but Filch did not. Unsurprisingly, the caretaker had accepted the deal.

Thinking back about his actions, Hagrid was working himself into quite a state, realizing that his brilliant idea had led his favorite pupil into a dangerous place without protection.

Soon, however, the half-giant heard Harry call him back, and a grin lightened his furrowed features.

Harry and Draco were hurrying in the direction of Hagrid's voice, as much as they could anyway, in the opaque darkness of a particularly dense stretch of woodland.

The brushwood finally cleared up somewhat and the boys broke into a run in the direction of Hagrid's voice. But suddenly, they felt the ground give way beneath them. They lost their footing and rolled down a ravine they had not been able to see in the ambient darkness. The slope was increasingly steep and rocky, and its sides formed a round, large bowl shape that seemed to have been carved out of the forest floor. At its very bottom, a small pond rippled under an imperceptible wind.

Harry and Draco both landed hard on the sandy bottom and the blow to their heads made them lose consciousness.

Not two minutes after this, Hagrid hurried a little way past the cavity.

Ten minutes afterwards, he was becoming frantic again as he had not heard the boys in too long a while, and his fear of something ill happening to them flared up brighter than before. He was about to call their names for the hundredth time when a rustle in the branches made him lift and aim his crossbow and yell : 'Reveal yourself! I am armed!'

Upon his words, a magnificent centaur with a wild, flowing white beard walked into his sight. Hagrid bowed low, saying only :

'Magorian.'

'Rubeus Hagrid', replied the venerable centaur with a regal nod of his head.

'May I still run wild in these woods of your ancestors?', asked Hagrid formally.

'You may keep your pace in these woods, which our descendants will guard', said the centaur Magorian with equal formality.

These ritual sentences pronounced between the Hogwarts gamekeeper and the ruler of the forest's centaurs, the centaur Magorian lifted his eyes upwards and, looking at the constellations, he remarked:

'Mars is bright tonight'.

Used to the centaur's frequent remarks about stars, Hagrid ignored this and asked if he had seen Harry and Draco.

'The two young snake foals? I believe they will find their way.'

'The two Slytherins...? Never mind.' Hagrid bowed a second time and hurried away while mumbling a goodbye, thinking he did not have the time to indulge the old centaur's ramblings about other students from Slytherin being out-of-bounds tonight.

As he walked away, a shooting star fell over the forest towards the clearing where he had left Hermione and Neville, though he did not see it. But every centaur in the forest did, and they all smiled brightly as joy filled their hearts.

Hagrid's heart, however, was at the moment far from joyous. It was starting to dawn on him that he might not find Harry and the young Malfoy on his own, and that he would have to admit that he had momentarily lost them to Hermione and Neville, who in turn might mention it to a professor, and this would land him in real trouble. He did not think that he could ask for their silence. He was lost in these troubled musings when he stepped in the clearing where Hermione and Neville still lay sleeping.

Curiously, the unicorn's body had disappeared. Perhaps it had not been dead after all, Hagrid thought. But he had more pressing matters to attend. In order to thoroughly search for his missing pupils, he first needed to get the remaining two to safety. He cradled the two sleeping first-years on each one of his arms, and hurried back to his cabin.


End file.
